


Hero Camp

by NotGale



Category: Original Work
Genre: Minor Character Death, Original Characters - Freeform, Original Story - Freeform, Other, Starts dark, a lot of it, gets light and fluffy at the very end, super powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-28 18:57:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14455674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotGale/pseuds/NotGale
Summary: You were abandoned as a child. You went through hell. You pray for a savior, and become your own.





	Hero Camp

They’d called it ‘Hero Camp’ when you were younger, coupled with a cheery little jingle and advertised on every station you’d watch. You’ve seen it a few times, but you would mostly just be confused as you had never met someone who could do the things being showcased in the short clips, and you would started ignoring it whenever it came on, impatiently bouncing on the fat cushions of couch as you waited for the cartoons to come back.

So naturally, it’d been a complete shock to you when you were dropped off at the building in the ad on your eighth birthday with the clothes on your back and whatever you managed to shove in a book bag for a birthday party and a week-long sleepover at your grandmothers’ beach house. Falling asleep on the way there just ensured you didn’t have any complaints when your parents got on the wrong highway.

You were too shocked to remember much more than your parents’ car speeding off down the dirt road, the woman who greeted you at the gate, and her plastic, pearly smile and too-small waist until you got too your ‘room.’ Thankfully, you’d been the first one assigned to that room so your panic fueled temper tantrum went unnoticed besides for the small light from the camera blinking away in the corner of the room.

 

Twice a day you were escorted by heavily armored guards to a cafeteria from whatever class you were currently in with other children your age to eat whatever grey slop they decided you should eat that day. As the days past, you could tell who’d recently been brought to the camp. The newest ones wouldn’t talk to anyone and would be red eyed and hesitant until they figured out that their parents wouldn’t be coming back for them and didn’t want to see them again.

As you grew older, you started learning secrets about the facility. Once you hit a certain age, you’d begin training. The grey slop they fed you was filled with nutrients and whatever other questionable things the facility could grind up and throw in the pot without some government agency shoving their noses in. That the guards would count the eating utensils after ever meal period. After a particularly painful and scarring lesson, you learned what happened when the guards found eating utensils missing after a meal and no one in your age group would own up to it.

You also grew up hearing rumors. That Johnny two doors down could make fire with his fingers. That Lacey, who was a few years older than you and was in a different age group, attacked a guard and managed to crush and break his armored arm with a single squeeze. That Lacey went missing in the middle of the night the day after, and wasn’t seen again. That there was a fighting ring in the basement, and a swimming pool on the top floor. That one of the lockers on the second floor of the facility held a bunch of snacks for the employees, and of course the combination was 8-0-0-8.

 

Three months before your 13th birthday, you heard shouting and screaming from the other rooms on your floor. When the guards finally got to your room, you and your roommates had already pushed themselves back into a corner out of fear. A chair was brought into your room, and one of your roommates, Onyx, was hauled into it by the guards, despite the many hands trying to keep her in the corner. When anger welled up in your chest at how they were holding her down to the chair and how they had yanked her head back by her hair, you’d lunged at the guard, vision red and spitting in anger. You managed to get a bite and some hits in before you were thrown back against a wall. You may have crumpled to the ground with the wind knocked out of you, but the blood in your mouth wasn’t yours and you gave the guard a defiant, victorious glare.

A week after you and your roommates had been branded with identification numbers and your heads had been shaven, the guard you attacked had died. They couldn’t prove it was you that killed him, but they had no idea what had killed him either. They couldn’t find anything besides your slightly infected bite mark, and while they were cautious with you for a bit and ran numerous tests, they eventually left you alone. Knowing that he had died after hurting you and your roommates filled you with vicious satisfaction, but you kept quiet about it so as not to draw attention.

 

Not long after, you’d started training. You weren’t sure what you were training for, but it was better than sitting in classes all day. You were told it was to help your age group ‘unlock your powers,’ which you suppose it did. Of course you still couldn’t do anything besides run the laps they told you to, lift the weights they told you to, flee and hide from the guards they released on you as a training exercise, and eat the soggy, now slightly green but still mostly grey mash they still fed you. Eventually, you began figuring out that if you assisted your fellow teammates, you could overpower the opponents the facility made you face. You all developed into a pack after that with the unspoken rule that you would watch each other’s backs, and those with powers would use them to protect those without.

A year after the training began, they started testing on those who showed powers by taking them down to a lower level in groups of five. Two of your roommates went to these tests, and always came back exhausted and pale with indents that looked like straps in their skin. Their voices were always hoarse when they first started the tests, but after a few months, they stopped coming back hoarse and explained that it wasn’t worth screaming because the people who were doing the tests wouldn’t stop even if they screamed, and no one would help.

 

One day, an explosion made the whole building shake. You watched guards race past your room, even as you pounded on your metal door until your hand had passed painful and just gone numb. Later, you’d notice that some of your pack was missing, even as it grew with parents abandoning their children at the facility when they started developing their powers. Onyx hadn’t come back from testing, and Emily reported to you that Johnny never came back to his room, which was across from hers. Three others were missing as well, and the whole pack waited anxiously until finally one of them came back.

He was badly burnt, had a jagged scar down his face that ran through one of his eyes, and had a dent in his bald head. He’d quietly told the pack what happened during the next meal period. Johnny lost control of his powers and his entire body caught fire, which exploded a tank of some sort of chemical nearby. The explosion ignited everything else and sent things flying everywhere, and entire cabinets started exploding as the fire spread. The only reason that he’d survived is because the initial blast flipped his table and protected him from everything else. He told you that the last time he’d seen Onyx, she was laying half way off the table she’d been strapped to, the remaining straps that hadn’t been burnt away holding her bottom half to the table. He told you about how he couldn’t get away from the soul-crushing stare of her dead eyes, and for the first time in years, you broke down crying.

 

After that, tensions were high between the employees and the pack. You did everything you could to protect your pack, and you weren’t the only one. If a guard came after you and your pack in training, you grabbed anything you could and attacked. A rock, a stick, anything. You trained harder than ever, and so did the others. More and more powers started popping up, and more and more fights between your pack started occurring and had to be broken up by the guards. In the middle of the night, the whole pack was woken up and rounded up, then escorted down to the basement.

You were just 15 when you and your pack were introduced to the fighting ring. By the time that you had figured out what was happening, you and your pack were already surrounded by guards with guns and other weapons. Finally, the woman with the plastic smile who you’d though had been a memory made her way in front of you. She informed you that if you all wanted to fight so bad, then you could do it in the ring, and it wouldn’t end until one of the two fighting couldn’t stand. Her smile stayed for the entire explanation, and only got bigger when shouts of panic rose from the pack.

The first pair didn’t fight. They refused, stood together in unity and were gunned down in unity by guards at the top of the pit. The bodies weren’t even moved away before the next two were chucked into the pit, and you watched in horror as two of your pack went against each other, teeth bared and powers flaring. By the time that one couldn’t push themselves off the ground, the other was swaying on their feet, and the sand below them was stained with blood. As the one that was standing hobbled out of the pit, the next two were thrown in without removing the one that couldn’t get up.

When the woman with the plastic smile had her fill of watching the fights, you and your pack were finally allowed to go back to your rooms. Your face was bloodied and you were limping, but you could safely say you won your fight, even though you’d been blasted across the pit by your opponents’ powers quite a few times. When you finally made it back to your cot, the sun was just already filtering though the barred window, and you still had a full day of training.

 

Pit fights happened every other weekend. Your pack was the youngest group to fight, and you were always up against someone at least two years older. Thankfully, those without powers didn’t have to fight those with powers, as the people who paid to watch the pit fights came for a show, not a beating. As you watched a fight through the cracks in the wall from the holding room, you realize that the fighting footage from the ad they played on the channels you watched as a child came from the pit fights. You idly wondered how much sand they had to kick over to hide all of the blood.

Sometimes, people didn’t come back from the pit fights. They’d died when a particularly strong fighter hit them too hard too many times, or they were the reigning champion for the night, and they just didn’t come back after being walked out of a heavy metal door you’ve never seen the other side of by one of the guards. You’d already lost a roommate to the fighting pit, and multiple pack members. You’d seen someone hauled on a stretcher and removed from the pit only once, and while they were still fighting to stay alive, you could already tell they weren’t going to make it. You fought time and time again, and while you were bested occasionally, you were glad that you hadn’t had to die in that miserable pit.

 

Sometime after you turned 16, you noticed your roommates got sick. As one complained of a headache, another complained of dizziness, and you had a sore throat and your lungs were stinging. Soon, they were all sprawled across their cots, lethargic and sweating as you tried everything you could to help. When the first one passed out and wouldn’t reply to you patting their cheek, you didn’t have a choice. You banged on your door and alerted the guards, then backed against the far wall at their orders. You were all evacuated by men in hazmat suits, and placed away from each other in the medical center. Soon, you were hauled up and told you were being moved to quarantine without your roommates. Understandably, you fought being moved from your sick pack mates, so much that they had to force you forward at gunpoint.

Your lungs felt like they were on fire by the time they got you to the quarantine room, and just as they were about to shut the door, it felt like your lungs burst. You screamed in agony as some dark-colored mist came pouring out of your mouth, seeping out of the doorway before they slammed the door shut. You could hear the people outside the quarantine room coughing and gagging.

 

So you had the power to breathe disease. That wasn’t something that the facility had heard of before, so they put you though extensive tests. By the time you were 17, you’d learned how to turn it off and on at will, and half a year later, you could cycle through which disease you wanted to inflict by the way it felt in your lungs. The downside was that the more deadly the disease, the more it hurt you, and the faster it killed, the faster you ran out of it. One of the friendlier nurses informed you that the longer and the more people used their powers, the easier it seemed to get.

 

Not long after you turned 18, you realized that the people in your pack without powers seemed to be disappearing. When you asked around, it turned out that they’d be there one night, and gone in the morning. So you kept watch. That night, you saw some of your pack being loaded into an army van, Emily’s large shoulders and tall stature making her stand out from those in the line. As if sensing you watching, she turned her head and met your eyes, her own scared and full of tears. You could do nothing more then watch and scream in anger as they hauled part of your pack away.

Once all the powerless in the pack were gone, the ones with powers started being shipped off too. Groups of eight to twelve at a time, only told that you should be thankful that you were finally getting out of the facility. Once you had hit 15, the number of new kids being abandoned at the facility by their parents had started dwindling. They’d stopped by the time you turned 17, and now there were barely a few kids left in your pack. Thirty left, then eighteen, then finally only 10. The ten of you were told that you had been left off the main lists because your powers were either especially strong, or because they were rare. Now they were going to auction you off like livestock, and you’d probably never see any of your pack again.

 

You suppose you had been lucky. Of all the horror stories you’d heard about what people wanted the ‘special auction’ powerfuls, or ‘mutants’ as you were referred to outside of the community, for, you’d only been assigned henchmen duty. Granted, you’d been given a collar that was used to incapacitate you if you left the building, and to blow your head up if you tried to remove it, but you thought it was understandable. The one who bought you didn’t want his assets running away. But you did get your own room, and you got actual food instead of grey mush. You even got paid.

Eventually, you worked your way up the ranks. You became loyal to the company that bought you, and did what you could to see it succeed. You even became part of the security team. You no longer had a collar, just a necklace that had a tracker in it in case you got carted away by some uppity government official or arrested. You could even leave the building in your free time on your own. Of course, there were still rules. Don’t use your ‘mutant abilities’ in public unless absolutely necessary, try to stay out of trouble, and other things.

Of course, as part of security, you were expected to help out on schemes, heists, or anything else. Where the leader within the company went, you went. The entire security detail watched each other’s backs and helped the others out when it could. It almost felt like a pack again. Just not your pack.

 

One day, after a few years of working for the company, you were out on a heist. Well, not quite. You were getting ready to raid a transport ship that housed some super-secret weapon that the leader needed for some reason or another you weren’t told, as it was above your pay grade, just off the coast. Once you got in and cleared the ship of its security, you patrolled below deck. All seemed calm, and seemed to be going well until you felt the boat lurch and give an odd shudder. Everyone froze for a split second, you a bit longer than the others, before running for the deck.

You got split up. You made a wrong turn. You didn’t know how to get back to the deck. You breathed out heavily in frustration, before turning around and heading back the way you came. You made another wrong turn. You saw vines running up and down the hallway you just turned down, still growing and slipping out of a cracked open round window. You took a few cautious steps forwards, and you heard something crack. Then you heard another crack, and a sloshing sound below you. The boat was sinking. You didn’t know the way out of the boat and it was sinking. Perfect. Just what you needed right now. You looked back down the hallway, and there was a girl standing there. She wasn’t wearing your company colors. You aimed your gun at her, and demanded she raise her hands.

Maybe demanding that she raise her hands wasn’t a good idea. The vines climbing the walls shot out at you as soon as she did, and you barely had time to fling yourself back and away from them as your gun went skittering down the hallway. You moved as quickly as possible, and it was still nearly too slow as a tangle of vines came crashing down where you had been just a half second before. You breathed out heavily, your entire body beginning to dully ache. The boat was sinking. Your best choice was to incapacitate her. You began seeping a fine, silver mist, not just from your mouth, but from all over your skin. It would knock her out and give her a hangover, but you’d have to be closer to her for it to take effect. You lunged at her, the vines around you flourishing in your wake. Flowers blossomed from them behind you, growing huge and strong, and the vines thickened and became greener.

You tackled her to the ground and tried to hold her down until a vine lashed out at you, wrapped wound your stomach, and yanked you off her. You twisted in its hold as it only seemed to suck up the mist seeping from your skin and grow larger. You cut it off of you with a handy knife from your boot before it could get any stronger and looked back at the girl, hoping to find her passed out on the floor. She wasn’t. She was halfway down the hallway in the direction you thought the exit might me. The boat lurched. You cursed and took off after her, leaving those damn vines behind, even as they tried to curl around your ankles and trap you.

You turned the corner and came to a dead stop. She was standing there, facing you. The water was creeping up the floor behind her. You hadn’t noticed you’d been running at an angle. Vines were growing around her, ready to attack you. You made a snap decision. You put your hands up and pleaded with her to help you find a way out instead, or you were both going to die. Water lapped at the back sole of her shoes. She was panting from exertion. Then it was at her ankles. The water was rising fast. The vines continued to grow, as if she wasn’t sure she should trust you. You finally just grabbed her wrist and started dragging her away from the water, until you were both running. Go left, she told you. You did. She knew the way out. You pushed her ahead of you, and let her lead.

There was fighting on the deck, and you rushed right into the middle of it as you flung yourself out of the stairwell. You immediately yanked her down to the ground as bullets went whizzing above your head, then shoved her towards some crates for cover. You both panted as you tried to get your bearings. The ship was at an actual tilt now, with people sliding down the deck if they lost their balance.

 

And then the boat was on fire. You’re not sure if it was something that happened because of the boat sinking, or if it was one of the security detail flinging his fireballs. You didn’t know if boats exploded or not, but you had no intention of dying in an explosion like Johnny and Onyx did when you were a teen. Flower Girl, as you decided to name her at that exact second, looked like she was torn between helping protect her team members and jumping ship. You made that decision for her as you hauled her to the edge and very nearly picked her up and chucked her into the water, following only a moment later.

When you finally made it to shore, you started laughing. You weren’t sure if it was because of the glare she gave you or if it was the fact that you went through a traumatic event and the adrenaline was wearing off, but you couldn’t stop. Or maybe it was the fact that you knew that if you went back to the company, they’d deem you a traitor and possibly try to kill you for abandoning the fight, the security pack, and the leader. You yanked off your necklace and tossed it as far away from you as you could and back into the ocean.

Apparently Flower Girl couldn’t go back to her pack either, as this was her first time out and she didn’t know where she was, where they were stationed, or if they were even still alive. She didn’t even have a handy dandy tracker. So when she leveled you with another glare and stomped away in the opposite direction of the ocean, you followed. You were lost too.

 

Eventually the two of you found a road and managed to hitch a ride with some guy in an old pickup truck. She wanted to sit in the bed, so you just shrugged and slid into the passenger seat. You made idle conversation with the man driving, and when his hand came to rest on your thigh, you asked him to pull over on a side road so you could show him just how grateful you were for the ride. You then proceeded to blow misty death directly into his face, then shoved his dead body out of the car as you coughed until you cleared the death out of your lungs. Flower Girl just gave you a look, weighed her choices, and then climbed into the passenger seat as you became the new driver of a 19-whatever white pickup truck. Congratulations.

You drop her off at the nearest town as she requests with a phone number she can leave a message for you at in case she needs anything even though you don’t know what to do with yourself now that you can’t go back to the company, and go on your way.

 

A year later when you’re 25, she picks you up. You’re going to a forest where you can tests the chemicals you can breathe on some trees that are being slowly killed by some sort of mite. While toxic to humans, it seems to give plants a boost, and Viera, nicknamed Flower Girl, is completely immune to anything you can breathe out. You’re able to save the trees.

 

Half a year later, she excitedly tells you about how she figured out not only how to make currently existing plants, but how to shape them into completely new plants that don’t exist. You smile amusedly as she gets so excited she starts bouncing on the balls of her feet. Your heart skips a beat as she gives you the brightest smile you’ve seen from her yet, and she gives you a bright pink flower with far too many petals. You’re able to get it to root, and it sits on your kitchen table in a pretty blue flower pot.

 

When you’re 26, you’re helping her cover the grave of her father in bright, vibrant flowers. Your heart aches for her, and she spends the night with you in your little cottage in the middle of a forest where you never have to turn off your powers because they no longer hurt you unless you’re using them to kill someone. The woods around your house are vibrant with plant life, and the forest creatures don’t bother you at all.

 

You’re 27 and she’s 25 when you tell her about your past. She’s horrified, and attends therapy with you. It’s going to take a long time to heal, but you realize that you don’t really mind as long as she’s by your side.

You’re not supposed to tell your therapist about your powers, but it’s a bit hard to explain your past without him knowing. You promptly break down one day during a session and tell him everything. You tell him how your family abandoned you there, how you felt when you realized they weren’t coming back. You tell him about what you now refer to as your cells, and about the food. You tell him about how you used to count the seconds ticking by on the clock in the hall way as you waited for the metal doors to open for meals. You tell him how they hunted you during trainings, and how you had to form a pack to be able to hold even a chance of overpowering your pursuers. You sob as you tell him about Johnny and Onyx, then become hard to understand when you tell him about how they died because you’re crying so hard. You barely calm down enough to tell him about the pit fights. You tell him about Emily, and how you wonder about what happen to her. You tell him about the identification branding, and he just shuts his eyes tight before tears spill out of them.

 

When you are 28, your therapist tells you that he’s hunted down an Emily that matches your description of her. He even tells you that she has the identification numbers, though you don’t know why you were expecting her not to. You thought that maybe she would have tried to find some way to get it removed. You meet her for coffee. It’s very awkward, as you’re not sure just what to talk about yet. But the meeting ends with a hug and a promise for dinner in a few days so she can meet Viera.

 

When you’re 30 and she’s 28, you give Viera your heart and soul in a private ceremony. Rose bushes spring up around the makeshift platform in your back yard and bloom as she practically flies into your arms and kisses you for all that she’s worth. You think the custom made ring of delicate gold and emerald vines matches her perfectly. You are hers forever, and happy tears fill your eyes. Emily, who did the ceremony for you and Viera, is already crying, while your therapist blots his eyes with a handkerchief.

**Author's Note:**

> I dunno what to put for notes, so... I hope you enjoyed the story!! :D


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